Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 2, 1912 The Plot Against Ettor and Giovannitti, Leaders of the Lawrence Strike
From the International Socialist Review of June 1912:
EDITORIAL
A Plot to Murder Wage-Workers.Our readers already know that Ettor and Giovannitti, the I. W. W. organizers who directed the Lawrence strike in its earlier stages, were thrown into jail on charge of conspiracy to murder. At the time this seemed merely a move to cripple the strike, and it was expected that when work was resumed at the mills they would be released. Now, however, it seems that a desperate effort will be made to pack a jury with tools of the mill owners and send our comrades to the electric chair. No one claims that they had any part in the actual killing of any one. The victim was a woman striker [Anna LoPizzo], and the shot was fired by a policeman, as is fully explained in the New York Call of May 10. The real question is whether the prisoners were inciting the strikers to violence, and on this point there is an overwhelming array of testimony in the negative. The REVIEW had a representative on the scene all through the closing days of the strike, and from his personal knowledge we can say that the capitalists and police were eager to have the strikers resort to force, and in many ways did all they could to provoke violence. The strike committee on the other hand realized that any resort to force would give the police and the soldiers the pretext they were looking for to slaughter hundreds of strikers. Consequently they maintained such discipline and restraint among the strikers that the pretext never came, and finally the strike was won. Now in revenge, the jackals of the mill owners are seeking to murder Ettor and Giovannitti. Their trial has been postponed to the August term of court. Money for their defense is urgently needed. Send it direct to William Yates, Treas., 430 Bay State Building, Lawrence, Mass.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 2, 1912 Big Bill Haywood Tells the Story of the Joyful Return of Lawrence Children
From the International Socialist Review of May 1912:
When the Kiddies Came Home
WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD
Monster Parade Welcomes Lawrence Children Home
After two months’ vacation in their temporary homes in New York, Philadelphia, Barre, Vt., and Manchester, N. H., the children of the Lawrence strikers, who had been involved for ten weeks in an industrial war with the master class of the woollen and cotton industries, returned to receive the greatest reception ever held at Lawrence. Most of the children were too young to appreciate what the wonderful demonstration of solidarity meant or the reason of their departure and their return under such changed circumstances. There were among their number, however, some who were strikers themselves and knew their home leaving was to lessen the burden of their parents. The strikers understood it was not a matter of sentiment, but that this rigorous action was adopted as a war measure.
It was for the purpose of calling the attention of the world to the conditions existing at Lawrence, to the conditions of the thousands of children in the textile industry of the New England states that were slowly starving to death because their parents were unable to make a living wage, likewise for the purpose of relieving the Strike Committee of the burden incident to caring for so many little ones and to remove their emaciated and wan faces from the vision of their parents who were on strike.
Although this measure had never been adopted before in America, its significance was soon realized and the spirit of class consciousness became aroused in the working class everywhere. The children found excellent homes and the letters they wrote back to their parents were a comfort and an inspiration. At the same time it enabled those who cared for the children to take an active part in the struggle that was on at Lawrence. Ordinarily they would have contributed their quota to the strike fund, but in caring for the little ones of the striking textile workers, they not only gave many times what their contributions would have amounted to, but they took a big part in the real battle.
The strikers of Lawrence hold a feeling of deepest appreciation for those who have cared for their children. They know that their little ones were treated better than they could have been at home. From all reports, they were received as little guests, and when the time came for them to leave: their “Strike Parents” there was many a tug at their little heartstrings. They had learned to love their new homes. They left Lawrence physically destitute, often ill-clad and without underclothes and wearing garments made of shoddy.
These were the children of parents who weave the cotton, linen and woollen fabric that helps to clothe the world.
They went to other cities to be clothed and returned to their homes well dressed, with roses in their cheeks and laden with toys and other gifts.
Their arrival was made the occasion of a great demonstration in celebration of the millworkers’ notable industrial victory. More than 40,000 people thronged the streets, over half of them taking part in the monster parade.
While the mass of workers were waiting for the arrival of the train, the Syrians, headed by their drum corps, marched around the county jail playing their inspiring Oriental music and carrying to the cells of Ettor and Giovannitti the glad tidings of the coming children.
Long before the special train with the children arrived from Boston, the region in the vicinity was black with people, while along the side streets leading into Broadway, the different divisions of the Industrial Workers of the World were drawn up in line according to nationality, there being fourteen divisions in all. The Italians and Syrians were accorded the place of honor. The heads of their divisions were made prominent by the beautiful floral decorations, the Italians carrying a massive piece on a litter held up by four men. It was these two nationalities that furnished the martyrs for the strike, Anna Lapizzio, the Italian woman who was killed in a fusilade of bullets fired by policemen, andJohn Rami, the sixteen-year-old Syrian boy who was stabbed in the back with a bayonet in the hands of a militiaman. His lung was pierced and he died shortly after being taken to the hospital. The floral pieces were in remembrance of the dead.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 15, 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts – Stirring Scenes as Strike Committee Agrees to End Strike
From The New York Call of March 14, 1912:
(By United Press.)
LAWRENCE, Mass., March 13.-The great textile strike practically came to an end at 11:30 today when the subcommittee of the strikers accepted a schedule of increased wages offered by William H. Wood, president of the American Woolen Company.
Immediately after indorsng the schedule, the subcommittee submitted it to the Strike Committee of the whole, which enthusiastically adopted it after less than a half hour’s consideration.
The strikers announced that they had gained virtually every concession asked when the strike was declared nine weeks ago.
The terms of settlement here will probably be applied to the entire textile industry throughout New England and New York State, and the increases in that event will affect over 300,000 workers.
Stirring scenes marked the meeting, which probably will mark the close of the conflict that, because of the savage resistance of the mill owners and the aggressive tactics of the strikers, will be celebrated in American strike history.
Chant the Internationale.
The dingy hall in the basement of which more than 2,000 men, women and children have been fed by the union for two months, resounded with the jubilant cries of the strikers. One man rushed to the platform and led in singing of “L’Internationale,” which was chorused by the audience.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 7, 1912 “The Lawrence Strike” by John Sloan & Photographs from Scene of Revolt
From The Coming Nation of March 2, 1912:
-page 4: “The Lawrence Strike” by John Sloan
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-pages 5-6, 12: Rock Fenn on Unity, Class Solidarity and Revolt
Revolt of the Textile Workers
How the Working People of all Nationalities in Lawrence Have United in Class Solidarity and Revolt Against Exploitation
By Rock Fenn
FROM the home of the striker at Lawrence to the office beyond the canal is a long step. On the one side are tenements reeking with the effluvia of families jammed into dispiriting rooms; on the other side a few well-fed bosses in great brick buildings a hundred yards long, with wide windows one above the other, three, four, five or six stories high.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 18, 1912 The Lawrence Strike Edition of The New York Call
From The New York Call of February 14, 1912:
From The New York Call of February 15, 1912:
THE LAWRENCE STRIKE EDITION
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[From page 2-Letter from Debs to Ettor:]
[From page 5-“The Children” by Adelbert Truando:]
[From page 6-“The Coming of the Children” by Jane A. Roulston:]
Note: also included in The New York Call‘s Lawrence Strike Edition are articles by Joshua Wanhope, Charles Edward Russell, Margaret H. Sanger, a story by Theresa Malkiel, “My Experience as a Lawrence Mill Worker” by A. I. Wolftraub, poems by Sydney Greenbie and M. J. Connolly, and more!
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